Sevigny v. Dicksey
| Decision Date | 18 May 1988 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 87-3550,87-3571,s. 87-3550 |
| Citation | 846 F.2d 953 |
| Parties | Diana Pepper SEVIGNY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Andrew F. DICKSEY, Individually, Defendant-Appellant, and The Town of Carolina Beach, Defendant (Two Cases). |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
William T. Womble, Jr. (William A. Blancato; Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Winston-Salem, N.C., on brief), for defendant-appellant.
Auley McRae Crouch, III (Carr, Swails, Huffine & Crouch; Karen Paden Boyle; Scott, Payne, Boyle & Swart, Wilmington, N.C., on brief), for plaintiff-appellee.
Before PHILLIPS and SPROUSE, Circuit Judges, and HAYNSWORTH, Senior Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment on a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff in an action brought under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 claiming that a police officer had violated the plaintiff's fourth amendment rights by arresting her without probable cause. Following the jury verdict, which necessarily found that the arrest was made without probable cause, the district court denied defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict based on his claim of qualified immunity. We agree with the district court's conclusion that the officer was not entitled to immunity and therefore, with one modification as to amount, affirm the judgment against the defendant.
The plaintiff-appellee, Diana Sevigny, is a single mother of two children. At the time of the incident giving rise to this action, her son Joey was three and one-half years old and her son Ricky was one and one-half years old. The incident occurred on the afternoon of July 29, 1984. Sevigny was preparing to take her children out as she awaited the return of a friend, Todd Whitesell, to whom she had lent her car earlier in the day. She had made plans to meet another friend, Cathy Williamson, at a movie theater with the children. Sevigny heard Whitesell drive up and left her condominium with her children. After she locked the door, however, she realized that she had forgotten her diaper bag. She told Joey to wait for her on the landing in front of her condominium and went inside to get the bag. Whitesell had left the car keys on the floormat and was coming upstairs.
Ignoring his mother's instructions, and without her knowledge, Joey ran downstairs past Whitesell. Once downstairs, Joey got in the car, started it with the keys Whitesell had left there, and caused the car to lurch forward and crash into the garage. A neighbor heard the crash and saw Joey alone in the car. He alerted Sevigny, who came downstairs to get her son. Joey was not injured.
About an hour later, Sevigny called the Carolina Beach Police Department to report the accident. Defendant-appellant Dicksey, an officer with the Department, responded to the call. Dicksey surveyed the accident scene and questioned Sevigny, who told him what had happened. Dicksey did not believe Sevigny, and expressed his opinion that she in fact had driven the car through the garage and was trying to place the blame for the accident on her son. Neither Sevigny's continued pleading that she was telling the truth, nor Whitesell's confirmation of the story could change Dicksey's mind.
Despite Dicksey's belief that Sevigny was lying, he did not question neighbors who would have confirmed her version of the story. Dicksey did, however, speak with Cathy Williamson, who had arrived while he was conducting his investigation. Williamson verified that Joey was an active child who had previously put the car keys into the ignition. After speaking with Williamson, Dicksey told Sevigny he was going to have to arrest her and allowed her to drive to the station with Whitesell. At the station, Dicksey applied for and obtained a warrant from a magistrate that charged Sevigny with misdemeanor child abuse--a charge based upon her version of the incident; and willful and wanton damage to real property--a charge based upon his belief that Sevigny herself had actually caused the damage. Sevigny was placed in a holding cell while Whitesell attempted to post bond. 1 Dicksey also reported Sevigny to the State Department of Social Services, which resulted in an investigation of Sevigny by that agency to determine her fitness to retain custody of her children. Sevigny was released on bond some two and one-half hours after she was brought to the station. Both charges were later dismissed by the state prosecutor.
Sevigny then brought this action against Dicksey and the Town of Carolina Beach, alleging under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 an unlawful arrest in violation of her fourth amendment rights, and pendent state claims of false imprisonment and negligence on the part of Dicksey and the Town. The only issues submitted to the jury were the false imprisonment and unlawful arrest claims against Dicksey. The jury awarded Sevigny $112,000.00 in compensatory and $21,000.00 in punitive damages, finding that Dicksey had arrested her without probable cause and had falsely imprisoned her. Dicksey moved for judgment n.o.v. on the basis of his claim of qualified immunity or, alternatively, for a new trial, primarily on the grounds that the jury's verdict was excessive. The district court denied both motions. This appeal followed.
Dicksey raises several issues on appeal. Primarily he renews his post-verdict arguments that he was entitled to qualified immunity and that the jury's verdict should have been set aside as excessive. Dicksey also raises a number of other issues, mostly evidentiary points, including a claim that the district court's expert witness fee award was in excess of the amount allowed by law.
We consider first Dicksey's principal contention--that he was entitled to immunity, a position rejected by the district court in denying his motion for judgment n.o.v. 2 We agree with the district court that as a matter of law he was not entitled to immunity.
At its most general level, the test of qualified immunity for executive officers is one of "objective legal reasonableness"--whether an official acting under the circumstances at issue reasonably could have believed that his action did not violate the constitutional rights asserted. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). At the more specific level here at issue--a warrantless arrest by a police officer--the test is whether a police officer acting under the circumstances at issue reasonably could have believed that he had probable cause to arrest, i.e., to believe that the arrestee was committing or had committed a criminal offense. See Anderson v. Creighton, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038-39, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (); Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 111, 95 S.Ct. 854, 861, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) ().
Though this test effectively allows police officers two levels of reasonable misapprehension of the constitutionality of their conduct in making arrests, 3 we readily agree with the district court that the test was not met here. We conclude instead that no police officer acting reasonably under the circumstances confronting Dicksey could have believed that he had probable cause to arrest Sevigny.
We start with the fact, as found by the jury and not challenged on this appeal, that he did not have probable cause to make the arrest. Under the Anderson test, that does not of course resolve the qualified immunity question. Dicksey might still be entitled to immunity if, on an objective assessment of the circumstances, an officer situated as was he reasonably could have believed that there was probable cause to arrest, i.e., to believe that Sevigny had committed criminal offenses.
As to that, our inquiry is further narrowed by Dicksey's concession on this appeal that there was no objectively reasonable basis for believing that Sevigny had committed the offense of willful and wanton damage to real property with which he alternatively charged her. He contends, however, that even so he is entitled to immunity because there was an objectively reasonable basis for believing that probable cause existed to arrest her for the other offense of misdemeanor child abuse. 4
To make the appropriate objective inquiry at this level of concreteness, it is necessary to consider both the factual circumstances and the law involved in the probable cause equation as they should have appeared to a police officer acting reasonably under the circumstances. For the reasonableness of a belief that there was probable cause to arrest without a warrant necessarily involves the officer's perception both of the arrestee's conduct and of the offense that he considers may thereby have been committed.
A warrantless arrest made either because of an unreasonable misapprehension of the arrestee's conduct or of the scope of the crime thought to have been committed, or certainly of both in combination, could not be one made on the basis of a reasonably held belief that the arrest was justified. But, by the same token, a reasonable belief entitling to immunity might obviously exist despite reasonable misapprehension of either conduct or law; it is precisely the function of qualified immunity in this context to excuse reasonable mistakes in making the composite factual and legal judgments leading to the arrests.
In considering the factual circumstances under which this particular arrest was made, we must therefore be concerned not with Sevigny's conduct as Dicksey may have perceived it, but as a police officer acting reasonably under the circumstances should have perceived it. 5 And in assessing the objective reasonableness of any critical misapprehension or ignorance of fact, account must be taken of any practical exigencies that prevented fuller investigation of the facts before the arrest was made. 6 In considering whether Sevigny's...
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